Month: February 2018

The Municipal Court of St. Petersburg unblocks 40 Bitcoin-related websites, will consider case further. #NEWS

New York Times

Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse? New York Times WASHINGTON — A manufacturing start-up recently announced plans to move into a shuttered aluminum factory in upstate New York, taking advantage of abundant cheap electricity from the St. Lawrence River. Instead of smelting aluminum, however, the ...

Luxury car manufacturer Porsche, in collaboration with Berlin-based start-up XAIN, is testing the application of blockchain technology directly in vehicles, making it the first automobile manufacturer to do so.

According to a press release the company issued last week, the applications tested include locking and unlocking the vehicle via an app, temporary access authorizations, and encrypted data logging. Porsche hopes these applications can be developed further, to improve autonomous driving functions, for example.

Porsche

Porsche’s blockchain technology, which runs on the Ethereum blockchain, makes a direct offline connection possible without the use of a server, the company explained. The process of opening and closing the car via an app is up to six times faster than before, taking just 1.6 seconds. In addition, cryptographic encryption ensures that all activities are chronologically recorded in the blockchain in a safe, tamper-proof way.

In the words of Oliver Döring, Porsche’s financial strategist, “We can use blockchain to transfer data more quickly and securely, giving our customers more peace of mind in the future, whether they are charging, parking or need to give a third party, such as a parcel delivery agent, temporary access to the vehicle. We translate the innovative technology into direct benefits for the customer.”

Further, the technology makes it possible to assign temporary access authorizations for the vehicle, as connection to vehicle data and functionalities can be established using blockchain. At the same time, it protects all communication between participants, and third-party providers can be integrated using smart contracts — without the need for additional hardware.

“With this modern technology, we are also fostering our electromobility offensive: ranging from a faster, easier and safer authentication at the charging station to the payment process,” said Uwe Michael, Porsche’s Vice President of Electronic Systems.

Porsche is also working on new business models based on blockchain: Through auditable data logging, processed data is encrypted locally in a distributed blockchain. The user is in control of the data, deciding how to use it depending on the situation; All activities are documented in the blockchain, making deletions transparent.

With this as a basis, the future of autonomous driving will see improved functions on offer. For example, local data can be used to obtain regional learning effects, which can be shared securely with other vehicles. The customer can also make use of swarm data, which is protected at the same time.

XAIN

XAIN won the first “Porsche Innovation Contest” on blockchain in the summer of 2017, beating over 100 other applicants in the process. Following the contest, interdisciplinary teams from across Porsche worked in collaboration with XAIN over the course of three months to develop and test applications.

XAIN offers various blockchain and artificial intelligence solutions, with a particular focus on intelligent industrial applications. Together with researchers from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, the company has developed a blockchain system which significantly reduces the energy consumption of mining.

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Porsche considers Blockchain applications for their vehicles with the help of Berlin-based startup XAIN. #NEWS

A platform specializing in cultural experiences is declaring war on ticket touts. #SPONSORED

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has fixed the processes that caused Bitcoin buys and sells to become temporarily unavailable on the platform. #NEWS

Goldman Sachs CIO Mossavar-Rahmani stated that when the cryptocurrency “bubble” bursts, it will impact 1% of global GDP. #NEWS

MarketWatch

Bitcoin hits a wall above $11000, downward trend remains intact MarketWatch It had been a good 48 hours for cryptocurrencies, with the majority of the main digital currencies posting solid gains to start the week. However, an early morning slide Wednesday put a dampener on investors. After extending gains early Wednesday, the ... and more »

Wall Street strategist Tom Lee repeats past prediction that BTC will double in 2018, says major corporations are moving towards crypto. #NEWS

Unlike the U.S., Germany will regard bitcoin as equivalent to legal tender when used as a means of payment, according to a new government document.

Ever the Bitcoin bull, Fundstrat’s Tommy Lee has today predicted a full recovery and then some in the cryptocurrency market within 2018. He cites crypto-related announcements from various international companies as contributing to the restoration of lost confidence.

Rakuten, Starbucks, Facebook, and Amazon Thought to be Looking Towards Crypto

Lee, the co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, maintains his earlier price prediction of $20,000 by mid-2018 and $25,000 by the end of the year. In a report issued today, the strategist cited the increasing interest of various companies in blockchain and cryptocurrency. It read:

“The announcement by Rakuten is another example of positive developments in crypto in 2018, suggesting the large sell-off in bitcoin and others at the start of the year was an overshoot to the downside.”

Rakuten is a large Japanese e-commerce platform. According to a CNBC report, the company are planning to launch their own cryptocurrency called “Rakuten Coin”.

In addition, Lee mentions three other large corporations that are considering entering the space. For him, this, combined with the fact that institutional money is yet to arrive into cryptocurrency, will surely drive prices up:

“In 2018, we forecast at least 3 major publicly-traded corporations to issue native digital tokens… Already three major companies have announced efforts within crypto-currencies, which demonstrate that corporations may be moving towards crypto-currencies before Wall Street has embraced them.”

One of the companies that Lee refers to is the Japanese messaging service LINE. They announced earlier this year that they’d be launching their own exchange service focusing on digital currencies. This would be known as LINE Financial.

Starbucks is also considering how blockchain and cryptocurrency technology could be beneficial to their business model. Howard Schultz, their executive chairman, stated on Tuesday:

“I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of.”

Lee also speculated on some even bigger companies making moves within the space. In his Wednesday report, he mentioned both Amazon and Facebook. Referring to the later, the Fundstrat strategist wrote:

“Facebook, we believe, likely announces a crypto-strategy this year.”

Lee is amongst those who are speculating that the social media giant may be preparing an initial coin offering of their own. This would flip the traditional funding model on its head, rewarding individual users instead of just accredited investors backing the company.

Whilst the mention Lee makes to Facebook is currently based on little more than speculation, the CEO of the social media company did hint that they’d be investigating how cryptocurrency could benefit his platform in an online post this January.

Today’s report is far from the first time that Tom Lee has expressed optimism for the future of the cryptocurrency space. The Fundstrat founder and strategist stated in July last year he believed a target of $55,000 per Bitcoin was achievable by 2022. This would represent an increase of over 5x today’s prices.

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Cryptocurrency represents an environment that is constantly growing and changing. As this ecosystem evolves and becomes increasingly complex, so does the jargon used most frequently in conversation. Acronyms play a large role in cryptocurrency dialogue, and without knowledge of the terms they refer to, it can be difficult to follow the information being shared. Here are ten of the most popular cryptocurrency acronyms that everyone should have knowledge of.

10. OTC

“Over the counter” refers to a method of trading that bypasses an exchange service. With OTC trading, buyers and sellers instead agree upon an exchange rate for a set amount of currency and, often with the help of a trusted third-party escrow, transact with one another directly. OTC trading is often prevalent among teams buying or selling to and from large, private investors, so as to not disrupt the market for their coin.

Before RaiBlocks was listed on an exchange, it was traded OTC on Bitcointalk for over a year.

9. GPU

A graphics processing unit is a computer component traditionally responsible for rapid and efficient creation and display of images, and often utilized to aid in PC gaming. However, GPUs play a very important role in a number of cryptocurrencies that utilize Proof-of-Work algorithms geared toward the processing strategies imposed by GPUs. As a result, there has been much tension lately between gamers and cryptocurrency miners, as the growth of cryptocurrency has led to an unprecedented demand for GPUs, which caused a shortage of units available to gamers as well as rapidly increasing costs for the hardware that is available.

I have just assembled my GPU mining rig, which I will use to mine Ethereum and Monero.

8. ATH

An all time high is the absolute maximum price that a coin has attained. It can be expressed in terms of either BTC or USD. Of course, one of the greatest feelings in cryptocurrency trading is holding a coin until it achieves a new ATH. Alternatively, seeing a coin drop significantly from its ATH for a sustained period of time is one of the worst feelings.

If Bitcoin can appreciate past US$20,000, it will achieve a new ATH.

7. DEX

Decentralized exchanges are often referred to as the future of cryptocurrency trading. As traditional, centralized exchanges have continually failed its users due to hacks, poor support, lack of scaling, regulatory changes, and other issues, much of the cryptocurrency community has looked to DEX solutions as structural fixes to these perpetual issues. On a DEX, buyers and sellers maintain ownership of their funds, and the DEX simply serves as a facilitator of direct trades between buyers and sellers.

The Counterparty DEX sees a lot of activity from Pepecash users exchanging Rare Pepes with one another.

6. BCH

Bitcoin Cash, and more specifically, its acronym, have been the subject of much controversy. There has been a popular campaign by BCH skeptics to refer to the Bitcoin fork as BCash, rather than Bitcoin Cash. This has sparked much backlash from Bitcoin Cash supporters and even the CEO of the coin, Roger Ver, who view the BCash campaign as a malicious attack on the BCH community.

I can’t believe I was able to receive so much Bitcoin from the BCH I received after the fork!

5. FUD

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt” refers to the practices of bad actors to drive the price of a coin down for one reason or another. FUD often takes the form of misconstrued or even blatantly incorrect news shared to convince holders of a coin to sell off their holdings. For example, the false news spread about China banning Bitcoin was FUD.

Don’t listen to this troll telling you X is going to fail. He is only spreading FUD!

4. FOMO

The fear of missing out represents the inverse of FUD, as it is a similar practice employed to instead drive the price of a coin upwards. FOMO takes the form of hype, both natural and orchestrated, breaking news, and sharp price movements. FOMO is blamed as the driving force behind unsuccessful investors purchasing a coin at its ATH, who are then stuck with a bag of a coin they likely didn’t do enough research on that is now worth far less than the initial investment.

The 50% jump in the past hour can be attributed to FOMO setting in following the huge announcement from earlier today.

3. ICO

ICO, or Initial coin offering, is perhaps the most widely spread acronym in cryptocurrency. ICO represents the crowdfunding approach to launches and relaunches of cryptocurrencies. For a majority of new projects, their future success is primarily dependent upon the results of their ICO. While there was once a time when the ICO tag carried a negative connotation, the overwhelming use of this system now overshadows the criticisms of skeptics of this approach to funding.

The year-long EOS ICO is the largest to date, and has raised close to US$1 billion.

2. BTFD

“Buy the F***ing Dip” is a trading method that simply involves buying a coin that has just seen a sharp drop. Coins that experience these dips are often referred to as oversold, likely due to a piece of FUD that had a large influence. However, sometimes these dips are natural, and those people who BTFD can still find themselves at a loss, forced to instruct the next wave of buyers to BTFD at the next drop. The fiery connotation is largely attributed to the sentiment that supporters of a coin are passionate about seeing its price recover as soon as possible.

Ethereum dipped 20% due to FUD news. Tomorrow the price will be back to normal, so now is the time to BTFD.

1. DYOR

“Do your own research” is perhaps the most universal advice throughout cryptocurrency trading, and in a broader context, investing in general. DYOR suggests that financial decisions should take place only after the individual uses due diligence to DYOR so they can be sure they are not being manipulated by FUD, FOMO, or some other act of spreading malicious or simply misguided information. The one commonality among all successful traders is they all take the time to DYOR.

I think that this coin is a great investment and has a great future. However, I advise you to DYOR before you make any decisions.

Bonus: Hodl

Hodl is technically not an acronym. Its origin is a drunken Bitcointalk forum post from December 2013 as the BTC price was crashing from the then-ATH of about US$1,000. Since that post, hodl became a joke spread throughout the entire community, and its prevalence has not ceased since. Recently, a sentiment has developed that suggests HODL stands for “hold on for dear life”. While this is not historically accurate, it does align with the context in which it is often used throughout the community. Hodl has even gained notoriety as the content behind a popular rap parody, HODL GANG.

 

Genesis Global Capital will allow investors to borrow crypto in quantities of $100,000 or more for terms ranging from two weeks to six months.

Even with the crypto revolution gaining more and more momentum by the day, there still seems to be a tangible knowledge gap within this sphere. For example, many people are still not clear as to what the blockchain and crypto assets really are.

Life was quite simple when Bitcoin stood as the lone blockchain, because it allowed the words cryptocurrency and blockchain to be used interchangeably. However, with the maturing of the crypto ecosystem, a large number of blockchains have flourished and become entities unto themselves.

A lot of confusion has ensued, since the term blockchain is now also used within contexts pertaining to P2P delivery systems and decentralized registries, and as a result of this, the word has found use within a host of crypto avenues.

The Blockchain In depth

The blockchain can be visualized as a decentralized system that consists of an array of participants who are motivated to perform actions within the parent ecosystem depending upon the incentives that are provided to them.

When we look at the functional capacity of the blockchain, we can clearly see that this technology is slightly hampered by issues related to the Byzantine Fault Tolerance conundrum.

Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) is a term that describes the capacity of a digital system to resist faults that are incurred when an electronic component failure is observed during the transfer of data.

Since blockchains are decentralized ledgers, they are not controlled by any singular authority or power figure. Thus, there is a chance that third-party miscreants could cause faults within the system as there is real value to be found in these ledgers. Additionally, when BFT is missing, there is a chance of false transactions circulating within the ecosystem, thereby reducing the reliability of the blockchain.

Overview of the BFT model (courtesy of Thomas Marckx)

However, with the advent of Bitcoin, this problem has been severely curtailed. This has occurred primarily due to a protocol called the Proof-of-Work (PoW). It was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto to serve as a probabilistic solution to the Byzantine issue. In fact, there is an e-mail from Satoshi himself in which he discusses this problem in quite a lot of detail.

Why does Bitcoin get so much attention?

Apart from being the first cryptocurrency to enter the digital asset market, Bitcoin also sets the benchmark when it comes to providing users with a host of functional features. To back up a bit, this currency was created by a person (or persons) who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

Satoshi first proposed the idea of Bitcoin all the way back in 2008, envisioning this currency to serve as an electronic payment service based entirely on mathematical proofs. The end goal was to create an asset exchange route that was not dependent on centralized institutions such as banks, but which would still be verifiable and secure.

To start off, we can see that Bitcoin is able to largely eliminate problems related to double-spending thanks to the fact that its base layer transactions are immutable and cannot be reversed once they have been executed on the blockchain.

Similarly, it makes use of “confirmation protocols” which require all of the involved parties to validate a transaction, thereby restricting double spending frauds.

Final thoughts

With the blockchain revolution now in full swing, it is quite important to educate potential investors and enthusiasts about the crypto domain as a whole. This will not only help remove common doubts pertaining to this field but will also allow users to make smarter investment choices in the future.

Cryptocurrency is the new favourite word for investors and geeks.

It’s one of the most exciting commodities to invest with its high volatile nature belonging to one of the most developing software .i.e. Blockchain.

Over the past 6-8 months, we have seen cryptocurrencies reach to the best of their prices and to the least of their prices as well.

Bitcoin touched $19,000 mark in December 2017, Ripple touched $3.84 mark in January 2018 when Japanese government put their stamp of trust over it.

Other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum experienced the same heights in 2017.

But after these skyrocketing numbers, cryptocurrency market had a quick fall.

They maintained their momentum at the beginning of 2018 but their prices fell fast and hard after that.

Bitcoin leapt from whopping $19,000 to $7000 and Ripple leapt from $3.84 to $0.76.

In brief, they have had their share of ups and downs in 2017 but what holds in the market for cryptocurrencies in 2018?

Will they soar to their old as well as new heights? Or Will they come crashing down harder and faster this time?

I am sure you have had the same question in the past or whenever you hear Bitcoin, Ripple or Cryptocurrency word in the news it makes you question their existence and their future as well.

We study the cryptocurrency market and here’s our prediction for cryptocurrencies in 2018.

Present Momentum of Cryptocurrencies:

Before we go and discuss what’s in the future of for cryptocurrency, let’s take a look at what’s happening these days in the cryptocurrency market.

After hitting the lowest point of $7,000 over January, Bitcoin is back on a good pace with the current price of $10,209.

On 19th Feb, Bitcoin almost soared to $11,000 when the investors started putting their money and faith back in Bitcoin after the correction of a small technical error.

At this moment, the market capitalization of Bitcoin is fluctuating between $160 Billion to $170 Billion.

Whereas Bitcoin is catching up on its pace, Ripple is a bit behind currently valued at $0.96/ Per XRP.

Other Present Day Prices of Cryptocurrencies:

Currencies	Highest	Fell to (Lowest)	Present Day
Ethereum	$1,396	$697	$844
Litecoin	$366	$143	$221
Bitcoin Cash	$3,831	$784	$1,248

Cryptocurrencies went on to become one of the most expensive commodities of recent times before falling back to normalcy.

But the story doesn’t end here.

They are back on track to become the most expensive trading commodity there is!

And future predictions may have some concerns that you won’t like but the future for Cryptocurrencies seem to be brighter than ever.

Let’s discuss the future and the factors that will affect this new road for Cryptocurrencies.

Future Predictions and Affecting Factors:

Presently, the cryptocurrencies are not at their best or worst.

They are just picking up the momentum but the major hurdle they are facing is the government.

The governments aren’t legalizing the buying and selling of cryptocurrency and they are avoiding these volatile currencies at any cost. They are not ready to accept this unauthorized money exchange where they don’t have any idea about the transactions taking place.

Traditionally all the money you have is either in the bank or invested somewhere and banks are involved in these transactions where they can monitor your movements and your liquidity. They have all the information of one’s fortune.

This is known as the centralized system. Governed by a central authority.

Whereas Cryptocurrencies are decentralized currencies without any entity to govern the transactions. But that doesn’t make it unsafe for investing. A person has to complete a proper verification carried out by the network and are charged with standard transaction fees as well.

Limitations of Cryptocurrencies:

Cryptocurrencies being decentralized currencies where there is no government to manipulate and interfere with your monetary decisions and transactions are prone to many uncertainties as well.

Other limitations that cryptocurrencies presently face – such as the fact that one’s digital fortune can be erased by a computer crash, or that a virtual vault may be ransacked by a hacker.

Even though there are risks in buying cryptocurrencies as of now but in the future, they might not be so volatile.

All the above-mentioned limitations can be overcome in time through technological advances.

The irony of the cryptocurrency market is that they want to keep it decentralized but with the increasing traction worldwide it is possible that they will attract more regulation and government speculation.

Besides this, the merchants accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option have increased but they are still in the minority part.

For cryptocurrencies to become globally accepted, they have to first gain universal faith and acceptance among consumers. However, their relative complex structure compared to regular currencies can become the reason for its unacceptance.

For cryptocurrencies to be a part of mainstream financial system, they have a long road ahead for them with such different criteria to satisfy.

First of all, It would be a huge challenge mathematically to elude the chances of hacking attacks and fraud and at the same time making it easier to understand and use for consumers.

Other issues they might face are: maintaining decentralized feature but at the same time having proper consumer safeguards and protection. Protecting consumers identification and providing total anonymity can encourage illegal activities like tax evasion, money laundering and steering clear from these can be the biggest challenge.

In regards to the future of Cryptocurrencies, Thomas Glucksmann of GateCoin told CNBC: “Increasing regulatory recognition of cryptocurrency exchanges, the entrance of institutional capital and major technology developments will contribute to the market’s rebound and push cryptocurrency prices to all new highs this year.”

He also added Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, could be “pushing $50,000 by December 2018.“

Conclusion

While the possibility of Cryptocurrencies skyrocketing again seems higher, there are slight chances that the decentralization feature of cryptocurrencies could cause trouble to the cryptocurrency market in 2018.

But despite these shortcomings, cryptocurrencies have taken the world by storm after 2013 and they have progressed a lot since its conception in 2009.

Recently, BlackRock, an investment giant, mentioned Bitcoin and its chance of being more acceptable globally in their weekly report.

They said, “Our bottom line: We see cryptocurrencies potentially becoming more widely used in the future as the markets mature.”

But at the same time advised keeping away from them if you can stomach complete losses.

These were our predictions for cryptocurrency market in 2018.

What are your thoughts regarding the prices and future of cryptocurrencies?

Do you think that the governments will be able to keep its hands off of cryptocurrency and let it bloom in the future?

Comment below and let us know what you think about the future of cryptocurrencies.

Author Bio:

Sam Makad is a business consultant at BigAI. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their businesses and overall ROI. He loves to write about topics on customer service, the blockchain, new technology, and marketing.  You can follow Sam on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.

 

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